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Tag Archives: Boston

Well it was inevitable, I suppose. There are certain things that naturally occur. If you have a keg party somebody is going to pass out on your bed and if there is a mass tragedy somebody is going to come up with a conspiracy theory. And then you will read about it on your Facebook page in between pictures of somebody’s dinner and a cute meme.

So it seems that there is a small but vocal community that believes that the bombing was staged. Apparently, the wounded people on the ground were not acting as freshly bombed as one would expect and there was insufficient arterial blood spray. In a tragedy you want as much arterial blood spray as possible, you see. Duh. I saw enough Friday the 13th movies to know that. Without it you’re just making another Leprechaun.

This picture and caption would have also worked as a promo for the Mr. and Mrs. Smith movie.

Anyway, the conspiracy theorists were kind enough to put up a sequence of post bombing pictures and walk me through “the staging” so that I could see for myself how it actually went. It was impressively narrated by someone with professed EMT credentials. I took them at their word about their credentials because people on the internet never lie. At least that is what I was told by the West African man who requested emergency funds and nude pictures from me. The conspiracy theorists didn’t state how many bombings and staged bombings they’d been to but I’m sure it is extensive.

Anyway I was totally with them through their conspiracy lesson right up until they added the Newtown shootings and 9/11 as additional staged tragedies. That gave me pause because, wow, what a talented group of tragedy stagers that would take! I mean, as anyone who has ever seen an Ed Wood movie can tell you, it’s really hard to make fake planes look real. Or maybe the planes were real and the buildings were fake? Or maybe the whole scene was claymation? Okay, I’ll admit I’m fuzzy on the details of that particular conspiracy, because I tend to tune out and start thinking of possible paint colors for my living room when people talk about it.

“I want to be a terrorist!”

But here is what I do know based on my history as an occasionally employed actress and frequent movie goer:

You never go smaller with the sequel.

You don’t pull off a mega blockbuster and then follow it up with a quietly heartbreaking independent film. George Lucas didn’t make Star Wars and follow it up with The Empire Suffers Quietly In A Coffee Shop. It’s not the Hollywood way. If you have successfully staged the attack and annihilation of a section of New York by foreign terrorists then you have to go even bigger for your next staging. Like the annihilation of the entire Midwest by aliens. Am I right? Tom Cruise, back me up on this.

“It’s no staging. The mother ship is coming.”

So I was totally ready to write this whole conspiracy thing off, but then I got to thinking. I’ve had a lot of birthdays–what if those were all staged by the government? What if I’m not 43? Which would make a lot of sense given my maturity level, fashion sense and fondness for Dubstep.

And once I’d made that leap the next logical question was…

What if nothing bad has ever happened: the holocaust, Hiroshima, that weird dude I slept with in my 20s because I felt sorry for him. What if none of that had happened? What if I’m really 21 and sitting in a pod somewhere with a plug in my head? What if I’m Neo or that really hot chick in the black latex suit who can do flips in slow-mo? What if I’m the chosen one sent to free all of you from your pods?

“Whoa.”

You said it, Keanu.

That is a massive responsibility and some mornings I can’t even find my car keys. But I’m not going to shirk my duty. I will not leave you plugged in like last year’s iPad. You’re getting upgraded! Or downgraded. Actually I’m confused by my metaphor, but the point is that all of the hours I spent watching X-Files episodes and last week’s Mud Run has prepared me for this moment. I will not let you down!

PS. Does anyone have any Baby Powder I can borrow? I’m having a hard time getting into my latex suit. You know what, I’m just going to wear some black yoga pants instead. Don’t take the blue pill!

Sometimes the world is a giant sh!t storm, isn’t it? I don’t usually write about tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombing. There are people far more eloquent in their sincerity so I usually leave it to them.

Then I saw Stephen Colbert’s opening monologue regarding the bombing and I thought that he got it exactly right. Check out his brilliance.

I lived 28 miles outside of Boston for three years. I married a man who grew up there. I have friends and a gigantic Irish and Italian family there. And let me tell you something:

Those are the toughest people I’ve ever met.

They are called Massholes by neighboring New England states for a reason. You don’t mess with a Masshole. You don’t mess with a Masshole’s friends and you damn sure don’t mess with a Masshole’s family (and given the popularity of the Catholic church and the procreative prowess of the populace there you can just assume that everyone is family.)

If you’ve ever driven the roads there and been cut off by a guy driving a pickup with a cracked windshield and rusted undercarriage, laying on his horn as he drove in a lane of his own creation after you assumed that you had the right of way simply because that’s what it told you in the driver’s booklet that you got from the registry, you have an inkling of just how tough they are.

Massholes view driving laws as mere suggestions devised for people who don’t have the balls to make their own rules. They subscribe to a Darwinian driving theory. The right of way goes to whoever has the stones to take it. That person will usually celebrate his/her victory with a festive, “Fahck you!” and a friendly one finger wave.

There is a reason that most of Hubs’s fondest memories involve stunts resulting in some kind of injury and/or fights. Maybe it’s years of chipping ice off of their cars in April, eating cream-filled, starchy foods, getting their @sses chewed for doing something they shouldn’t by the neighbor down the street who then sent them home to get their @sses kicked by their parents, getting all their molars pulled. Maybe those things gave them stones the size of glaciers. That’s just a guess. I don’t know where that toughness originates exactly. I just know that it’s there.

If you doubt me, just walk into a bar in Southie and say, “your mother’s a whore” to no one in particular. Of course you’ll want to make sure that your will is in order first.

“My mothah is a saint and a virgin.”

These people take the “R”s out of words with an “R” in their spelling and randomly put those “R”s at the end of other words like “Brenda” because they can. These people are not PC. They are not careful. They are not shy with their opinions. They are fiercely loyal. They are always ready to tell you a joke or kick your @ss…depending on the situation and whether or not you are wearing a Yankees hat.

They eat broken glass and road salt for breakfast (topped with a generous helping of Marshmallow Fluff.) You don’t pick on people like that. You can’t break their spirit. The weather has been trying for generations and it can’t be done.

But then again, the type of coward who would leave explosives in an area crowded with families and children and then run to safety before the carnage was unleashed wouldn’t understand that kind of spirit. They wouldn’t understand the Masshole propensity to love and fight and endure. To run toward danger to help those in need. So on behalf of my Masshole friends and family let me just say to those bomb-dropping cowards

FAHCK YOU!

*My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families and my most sincere gratitude goes out to the people who ran to help.